While formatting the hard drive (mostly drive “C:”) all your data on the chosen harddisk will be deleted without a possibility of getting the data back. With formatting the disk all data and programs on the harddisk will be deleted! After formatting the drive you can install a fresh new Windows.

To format the Windows XP hard drive (HDD), put in the Windows installation cd and restart your computer. The computer will start now from the installation disk, or will give you the option to start from this cd.

After the startup from the CD, the Windows Setup menu will appear, when you want to install windows. Before the install, you can choose for the option to make the harddisk FAT32 or NTFS.

In the next screen you can choose, if the last Windows on your pc should be repaired, or if there should be a clean windows install after the format (ESC key). Now you can delete the previous Windows version and choose where the new one should be installed (normally c:).

Now the option of choosing for either FAT32 or NTFS comes. While Windows 95/98 used FAT32, Windows 2000 and XP use normally the newer NTFS. Windows XP can work under FAT32, but there can occur problems with bigger data, like movies or images.